Cassandre (graphic designer)

Biography

Born in Ukraine from French parents, after a childhood shared between Russia and France (where it settles in 1915), it makes a short passage to the Art schools in Paris in 1918. It studies there painting and in particular the Impressionnisme before joining Lucien Simon with the Académie Julian. It is interested very early in the Bauhaus whose influence shows through in its compositions. In 1922, in front of assuming itself financially, he is engaged by the independent studio of creation Hachard where he completes his first advertizing work (Sacac Margarine, Pâtes Garres) which he signs of the name of artist of “Cassandre” in 1922 (sometimes associated with “Pimpernel” until 1928). He initially sees in this activity only one food employment enabling him to remain while waiting to be able to live of his painting. Very lucid, he will say in particular Painting is an aim in itself. The poster is only one means of communication between the tradesman and the public. It is the will to produce a clear and easily comprehensible message which will lead it to apply to its visual designs borrowed from architecture and the geometry. The advertizing graphics, of which it will become one of the uncontested Masters, exerts an increasing fascination and it there has suddenly seen gradually a means to find the contact lost the painter with many people .

In 1924, it marries Madeleine Cauvet, of which it will have a son, Henri Mouron. He will divorce in 1939.

He is rewarded in 1925 by the Grand Prix for the International exhibition for decorative arts for his creation the Logger (a publicity for a store of pieces of furniture, 1923) who ensures his notoriety. This dedication is also the occasion to make the meeting of Charles Peignot.

It founds in 1926 the agency “Alliance Graphic”.

It settles in the United States where it collaborates in the review Harper' S Bazaar in 1936-1937 and carries out many covers of them.

He collaborates lengthily with Georges Peignot and the Fonderie G. Peignot & Fils, for which he creates the font faces Bifur 1929, Black Acier 1935 and Peignot 1937.

As from the years 1940, he forsakes publicity and becomes creator of stage sets and painter.

It remarie in 1947 with Nadine Robinson, which he will divorce in 1954.

It sinks gradually in the depression and commits suicide with Paris the June 17th 1968 after a first attempt the previous year.

Analyzes of its work

It was receptive with the currents of the artistic search for its time and was particularly marked by the Cubisme and the Purisme, like by the work of the photographers and the scenario writers. The influence of futuristic Italian shows through in his work through its way of making visual speed and modernity, in particular in publicities for the train or the steamers. It is thus made the cantor of technological advance and its work is in that emblematic of the time.

It defined its manner as “geometrical and monumental”. This work exposes its very identifiable style resting on a simplification of the forms and the stressing of the prospects, and it to underline the very geometrical aspect of its subjects, in particular on the posters for the steamers (see its poster especially created for the inaugural voyage from Normandy, remarkably silhouette of face, on May 29th, 1935). The typography occupies a place decisive and formed integral part of the composition. It is one of the first to use the letters like graphic elements essential with the composition and to treat them like surfaces. Besides Cassandre creates its own characters as well as Logotype S like that of Yves the St. Lawrence. The police forces used are almost exclusively lineal capitals (without footing) whose simplicity allows the modular treatment and geometrical construction quasi architectural that it affectionate. It offer moreover the advantage of being able to be deformed while remaining readable.

The pig iron and cast iron created by Cassandre rests on pure forms, reduced to essence while remaining identifiable. Convinced that the Roman capitals constitutes the purest form and noblest of the alphabet, it will frequently omit to develop the tiny ones that it regards as a deterioration of the model due to the constraints of the manuscript writing and will prefer to create lower cases which are in fact small capital letters.

The work of Cassandre is also characterized by its semantic work. Within the framework of the countryside for the Dubonnet aperitif, it creates a succession of images whose legend reveals gradually the mark and constitutes the slogan, constant by the illustration: dubo (a stylized man looks at glass of aperitif, only glass, its arm and its face is colors, the remainder is outlined), dubon (it carries it to his mouth, the color is spread in his body), dubonnet (it is used again and all the image is color).

The style of Cassandre associates the purity of the lines with the dramatic use of the color in particular by ranges carried out with the aerographer, a technique which is spread gradually in the years 1920.

Quotations

The poster requires of the painter a complete renouncement. It cannot be expressed in it; it could, it would not have the right of it. Painting is an aim in itself. The poster is only one means of communication between the tradesman and the public, something like the telegraph. The poster artist day the role of the telegraphist: he does not transmit a message, he transmits them. One does not ask him for his opinion, one asks him to establish a communication clear, powerful, specifies… A poster must carry in it the solution of three problems: optics, graph, poétique.
Cassandre in Notes , 1935

I hoped to find industry this life which I could not meet any more in the cemeteries of the merchants of tableaux.

Cassandre was largest, the best graphic designer of its time. The first thing that we made, before even joining together the funds or finding the collaborators, was to meet it. It had drawn the initials of Christian Dior, it was forgotten. It was in 1961. It made us only one proposal, that of initial interlaced; the meeting took place at the restaurant the Unloading dock, in Paris.

Pierre Bergé, cofounder of Yves Saint Laurent in connection with the creation of the logo of the dressmaker

Blaise Cendrars known as of Cassandre which it is " The first director of the rue".

Cassandre, in 1929 " the poster is not a table, it is a machine to announce (...) it is first of all a mot. "

Works

Throughout the years 1920 and 1930, it created very many posters and advertizing models which marked their time.

1923: Advertizing poster With the Logger , who opens the way with modernity. Post preceded in 1925 at the time of the International exhibition of decorative Arts.
1925 Posts Intrans for the daily newspaper the Intransigent .
1927 Advertizing poster of the Star of North Grand Prix of the Poster.
1931 Posts the Atlantic, for the steamer ensuring the connection with America of Sud.
1932 Advertizing poster of Dubo, Dubon, Dubonnet , whose topic is still some visible time in the Parisian subway.
1935 Advertizing poster of the steamer ensuring the connection between Europe and North America, the Normandy , realized for the Transatlantic General Company
1935 Cover of Panorama of the underworld , report of Blaise Cendrars, Grenoble, Benjamin Arthaud.
1935 the Spectacle is in the street , album of posters, Montrouge, Draeger Frères, with a foreword of Blaise Cendrars.

Random links: